1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of telephony communications and pertains more particularly to contact center operations.
2. Discussion of the State of the Art
In the field of telephony communications, including Internet Protocol Network Telephony (IPNT), and Data Network Telephony (DNT), it is known for a contact center telephony system to record voice calls to monitor quality of service afforded to customers of the call center.
A customer calling the call center, in most situations, will receive an automated prompt that says something like “This call may be recorded for quality management purposes”. In the call center it is probable that not all calls are in fact recorded for quality management purposes. Some calls may be selected randomly for recording, and some calls are not recorded at all. All voice calls may be recorded in some state-of-the-art contact centers for historical purposes. Such call recordings may be stored or archived for later retrieval by authorized call center personnel using a search tool.
It has occurred to the inventor that a customer engaged in ongoing dialog with a contact center may desire, and have need for access to what was said in voice conversation between the customer and an agent of the center. One benefit of such a capability might be that the customer feels assured that he or she has been heard correctly and that there is no verbal confusion relative to any transaction that may have occurred. However, current means for recording and archiving voice conversations between a contact center and customers do not include any functionality for customer control, either access to or recording of voice interaction.
Therefore, what is clearly needed is a system and methods for enabling customer control of recorded voice conversations between the customer and a contact center and at least some customer control over post-recording management tasks.